Air Purifier

An air purifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air in a room. These devices
are extremely beneficial for allergy sufferers, asthmatics and at reducing or eliminating second-
hand tobacco smoke. They are also extremely useful for reducing pollutants from a room if you
live in a highly polluted environment, for instance New Delhi, Patna or Gwalior; which are among
the most air polluted cities in the world. They also help eliminate virus and bacteria from a room
which prevents the spread of disease.

LITERATURE REVIEW

• HEPA filters were originally classified as top-secret, developed by the US Atomic Energy
Commission to protect soldiers from radioactive particles on the battlefield. During World War II,
scientists involved in the Manhattan Project used HEPA masks to guard against contaminants
from the atomic bomb.

• Although these early HEPA masks couldn’t possibly protect people from atomic radiation, the
research spawned the HEPA filter, which provided protection against chlorine gas, mustard gas,
and flame throwers. It was not until the 1960s that specifications were standardized and the
term HEPA or "High Efficiency Particulate Air" was officially coined by the Department of Energy
(DOE).

• As defined by the DOE, HEPA filters remove at least 99.97% of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria and
any airborne particles with a size of 0.3 microns at 85 liters per minute. From the beginning,
HEPA filters were employed to filter out highly hazardous aerosols, toxic carcinogens,
radioactive particles, and biohazardous contaminates.

• In Germany, brothers Klaus and Manfred Hammes purchased a patent for a simple air
filtration system. Using a fiberglass pad attached with small magnets to the air outlet of a
residential oil oven, the Hammes brothers were able to filter soot from the air. In 1963, the
Hammes brothers simple but effective filter became the first air cleaner to be utilized in homes
across Germany.

• In the same year, US Congress passed the Clean Air Act of 1963 to set standards for the
reduction of air pollution through fuel emissions standards. Although it was not Congress first
attempt at reducing air pollution, the Clean Air Act of 1963 alerted scientists and consumers of
the need to protect our lungs from pollutants such as perfumes, building materials, chemicals,
pesticides, and allergens.

• No longer classified as top-secret, HEPA air filters became popular in the 1970s and 1980s as
more consumers became concerned about air pollution. With the introduction of dozens of
products featuring HEPA filters, new and exciting ways to control allergies and asthma finally
became widely available for residential use. Originally, the first HEPA air purifiers were bulky,
difficult to operate, and traditionally used only in hospital and pharmaceutical settings and
among computer chip manufacturers. Then businesses began to take notice of indoor air
quality concerns among residential consumers.

• In response to the growing demand for cleaner air, Incen AG, the Hammes brothers newly
formed company moved to Switzerland and began developing and manufacturing residential air
purifiers in 1971. After many years of international success for Incen AG, Frank Hammes, son of
Klaus Hammes, began to distribute cabin air filters as add-on accessories for Mercedes-Benz
automobiles in 1990.

• In 1991, Frank Hammes formed IQAir North America, which has promoted the continual
growth and success of the air purification industry.

• In 1991, through the amazing technology of True Medical HEPA and Activated Carbon,
Richard Taylor created a filter that addressed the issues of environmental particulate
contamination, chemical toxicity, and odours. It was then that he and his wife Joyce founded
Austin Air Systems Limited. Based out of Buffalo, NY, Austin Air introduced a pre-filter that
ensured a HEPA filter life unequaled to anything in the industry. Austin Airs 360-degree intake
system draws air into all sides of the air cleaner, maximizing efficiency and delivering more
clean air faster. With the largest air cleaner manufacturing facility in the world, Austin Air
continues to produce all the parts for their fantastic air purifiers.

• Established in 1992, AllerAir quickly became a trusted name in air purification. After a family
member of AllerAir founder Sam Teitelbaum developed Multiple Chemical 31Sensitivity (MCS),
Teitelbaum and partner Wayne Martin decided to develop their own air cleaner. Using the
combination of true HEPA filters and a MAC-B (mass activated carbon bed) filters, which
contain pounds of carbon, AllerAir created an air purifier that safely and effectively removes
chemicals, gases, and odours from the air. With offices in the United States, Italy, and Canada,
AllerAir air purifiers are used by the Mayo Clinic, IBM, Gucci, Prada, and the U.S. Army. With
more than 100 model to choose from, AllerAir air cleaners are efficient, practical, and cost
effective.

• With headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, and Chicago, the Blueair air purifier company is
committed to creating a healthier environment both indoors and out. Founded in Sweden in
1996, Blueair quickly earned a reputation for high performance, technological innovation, and
quality design. A revolutionary combination of mechanical and electrostatic filtration allows
Blueair purifiers to capture 99.97% of irritating particles, gases, and odours. With more than five
different models, these powerful yet near-silent air cleaners provide a visually-pleasing form and
highly effective function.

• Now a global leader in the production of specialty products and chemicals and a subsidiary
brand of Kaz, Honeywell started as a hot water heater company in 1906 and has a longstanding
tradition of supplying safe, reliable, and high-quality products. Acquired by Kaz in July of 2002,
Honeywells indoor air quality products continually meet and exceed the American Lung
Associations Health House guidelines with meaningful innovations based on consumer
research and insights. With the use of permanent, lifetime HEPA filters, Honeywell air cleaners
remove 99.97% of all common, household particles such as dust, pollen, tobacco, smoke, and
cat dander. The Honeywell glass-fiber HEPA material helps remove airborne particles without
the use of expensive ultraviolet bulbs, chemicals, or other treatments. With a diversity of
products to fit your needs, Honeywell offers a series of Home Comfort and Indoor Air Quality
Solutions.

• In 2002, IQAir air purifiers became the first air cleaners to incorporate H13 class certified
HEPA filters, which capture up to 100 times more particles than conventional HEPA filters. H13
class certified HEPA filters, up to that point, had only been used in hospital clean rooms.

• Although no longer a top-secret government project, air purifiers still hold the secrets to
cleaner air and healthier environments for many asthma and allergy sufferers. Today HEPA air
purifiers and filters are used in a variety of critical filtration applications in nuclear, electronic,
aerospace, pharmaceutical and medical fields, as well as in homes around the world.

• Research scholars at home and abroad have done a lot of research. Nowadays, indoor air
purification technology is mainly divided into two types: capture type and reactive type. The
capture type separates the contaminants from the air fluid by filtration or adsorption, leaving the
contaminants in the air purifier. The reaction type principle mainly removes gaseous pollutants
(molecular type pollutants) in the air by chemical reaction or ionization. Common reaction
mechanisms are UV sterilization, photo catalysis and chemical catalysis, room temperature
thermal catalysis, plasma and ozone oxidation. However, this purification method is easy to
cause secondary pollution. There are three common capture air cleaning systems: mechanical
filtration, electrostatic precipitator (ESP), and hybrid air purifiers (Chan et al., 2015).

• In 1963, the German Hammer brothers developed the first indoor mechanical filter to remove
soot from indoor air. The main components of mechanical filtration (also known as fiber
filtration) are fans and filter dust collectors (Klepeis et al., 2017). The built-in fan draws indoor
air into the purifier. The particulate pollutants in the air are filtered by diffusion, interception,
impact or inertial force. Its filtration efficiency is affected by the structure of the air purifier, the
nature of the filter material and the power of the fan. This type of purifier uses a wide variety of
filter materials, and the filtration function depends mainly on the nature of the material. Porous
filter materials such as nonwovens, filter paper and fibrous materials are most commonly used.
The air filter for filtering PM2.5 is usually made of high-efficiency air filter material (HEPA: High
Efficiency Particulate Air), and the material is ultra-fine glass fiber or synthetic fiber, which is
often processed into paper. As early as the 1940s, the United States developed the earliest
HEPA filter in the Manhattan project, which was used to prevent the spread of radioactive
pollutants in the air.
• Nowadays, it has been widely used in the nuclear industry, pharmaceutical industry, food
industry and semiconductor industry (Oh et al., 2014). The main components of HEPA are
mostly glass fiber or quartz fiber. The efficiency of good HEPA material to remove particulate
pollutants in the air can be as high as 99.97%. The most important feature of this material is the
high efficiency of particle collection, but the resistance is very large. These two parameters
depend on the fiber structure (bulk density, fiber diameter and thickness), operating conditions
(filtration rate and temperature), and the characteristics of the trapped aerosol (density, particle
size, and particle size distribution). The particulate contaminants are first deposited in the filter
bed and deposited on the surface of the filter (Park et al., 2017).

• This process does not affect the apparent filtration rate. After that, a filter cake is formed on
the surface of the filter. As the particulate matter continues to deposit, the resistance increases
exponentially. Therefore, the requirements and energy consumption of the wind turbines are
getting higher. In order to reduce energy consumption, such air purifiers have to periodically
replace the filter media material. Moreover, the filter material is a one-time consumable, which
is not economical. In addition, long-term use of this filter can cause contaminants to escape
from the filter, producing human-perceivable contaminants. Therefore, the mechanical filter air
purifier has a lower market share (Rice et al., 2018).

• However, primary filtration and intermediate filtration are still widely used in the pre-stage
protection of high efficiency filters. The electrostatic precipitator can use either high-voltage
positive electrode discharge or high-voltage negative electrode discharge, but they all use
corona discharge. It is mainly composed of a discharge electrode and a collecting electrode,
and the discharge electrode is connected to the first stage of the DC high voltage power supply.
Two prerequisites for corona discharge are high voltage power supplies and electrodes with
very small radii. The mechanism of action is to generate static electricity by the corona
discharge principle while generating an electrostatic field. Very small particulate contaminants
are ionized into positive ions and electrons as they flow through the high voltage electric field.
These particles can collide with other particles or air molecules to charge the latter, and the
electrons and positive ions move to the positive and negative electrodes, respectively, to form
an electric field across the gas between the two plates.

• Then, under the action of the electric field force, the charged particles are orientated in the
electric field along the direction of the power line to be captured on the collecting electrode, and
this process generates a minute current. The electrostatic air purifier does not need to replace
the filter material regularly like a mechanical air purifier. After the power is turned off, the filter
can be removed and cleaned for recycling (Shao et al., 2017).

• Compared with the mechanical filter, the electrostatic precipitator air purifier is economical
and environmentally friendly. Therefore, it is attracting more and more people's attention,
becoming the mainstream trend of indoor dust collector research, and at the same time, it is
increasingly occupying the dominant market. With the development of this technology, the
electrostatic precipitator purifier has higher and higher dust removal efficiency and lower energy
consumption. However, during operation, the electrostatic precipitator air purifier generates
secondary pollutants, that is, ozone, due to high-voltage electricity ionizing oxygen in the air.
Moreover, the ozone concentration generated easily exceeds the indoor average of 0.16 mg/m3
for one hour as stipulated by the National Indoor Air Quality Standard (GB/T18883-2015), which
is also the biggest drawback of this type of air purifier. The filtration efficiency of such an air
purifier is affected by a number of factors. The flow of air can affect the electrostatic field,
which in turn affects the charging and motion of particulate contaminants.

• At the same time, if the concentration of particulate matter is high, it will also affect the
electrostatic field, air flow field and particle motion. Common electrostatic air purifiers are
mainly divided into the following types: the conventional electrostatic air purifier consists of an
electrode and a trap plate. The electrodes are placed in a central position. The electric field lines
are perpendicular to the direction of air flow. The two-electrode plate electrostatic air purifier
can change the voltage. It removes particulate and gaseous contaminants such as NOx. The
hybrid air purifier combines the principle of static electricity with other filtration mechanisms to
improve its filtration efficiency and economy. After passing through the electrostatic field, a
portion of the particles are captured by the collecting electrode and a portion is captured by the
fibrous material. These fiber materials do not require the use of HEPA (HEPA resistance is too
high, energy consumption is high) because charged particles charge the fiber filter material,
which increases the filtration performance of the fiber material (Wongaree et al., 2016).

• The electrostatic precipitator system is designed with a water mist curtain at the front end of
the electrostatic precipitator system. On the one hand, it can cool down and lower the high
temperature gas to room temperature. On the other hand, the increase of humidity will cause
the condensation of some small particles (especially nanoparticles), thereby increasing the
particle size of the particle contaminants and improving the filtration efficiency. The
experimental results show that the filtration efficiency of the nano-particles with water mist
curtain and water mist curtain is 67.9%~92.9% and 99.2%~99.7%, respectively. The wet
electrostatic precipitator system has high filtration efficiency. However, the humidity of the gas
is greatly increased, causing discomfort to the human body. Therefore, it is not suitable for use
in indoor environments. The first stage of the dual zone electrostatic precipitator system is the
particulate pollutant charging area. There is a high voltage electric field in this area, and the
particles are charged under the action of a high voltage electric field.

• The second stage is the settling area. The particles settle to the collecting plate under the
action of an electric field. Such a dust removing device is often used in the field of indoor air
purification because of its small size. Today, most of the air-based electrostatic precipitators
are used in the market. The main structures include electrostatic precipitators, pre-filters, fiber
composite layers, fans and negative ion generators. Physical and chemical adsorption is the
main mechanism of action of adsorption air purifiers. The adsorption carriers commonly used in
the two are activated carbon, silica gel, molecular sieves or fibers. Physical adsorption often
requires that the adsorbent support be porous and have a large specific surface area. The
principle is to use the intermolecular force to adsorb the pollutants on the adsorption carrier to
achieve the effect of removing pollutants. Today, mainstream air purifiers on the market often
use adsorption methods to remove harmful gases or volatile organic compounds, such as sulfur
dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen oxides, benzene, formaldehyde and toluene in the air (Xiao et
al., 2018).

• The advantage is that no matter the concentration of the pollutants, the adsorption effect can
be good, and the adsorption speed is fast. The chemical adsorption relies on the
abovementioned materials as a carrier, coating a layer of active chemical substance on the
surface thereof as needed, or merging with these chemicals to form a novel purification
medium. Then, the pollutants in the air are removed by a chemical reaction method. Through
catalysis, decomposition, oxidation and neutralization, a variety of harmful substances in the air
are adsorbed, thereby achieving the purpose of eliminating pollutants. However, once the
adsorption carrier is saturated, it needs to be replaced and cannot be recycled.

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